


Sprout from The Stump and Roots

by snowshus



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Public Nudity, Roadtrip, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:15:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25498225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/pseuds/snowshus
Summary: Improbably Alison comes across Longshot naked in the middle of the desert
Relationships: Alison Blaire/Longshot
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	Sprout from The Stump and Roots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangerine/gifts).



Improbably, Alison comes across Longshot naked in the middle of the desert about eight miles east of Reno. She’d ask which of the many gods it was that hated her so much that they’d constantly throw her ex in her face, but in this particular case she’s pretty sure it’s just Longshot’s godforsaken luck.

“I’m guessing you’re the reason the plane had sudden inexplicable engine problems and had to land in Fallon.” She doesn’t get out of the car. He doesn’t deserve her getting out of her nice air conditioned rental car. She’s not even entirely sure what she’s mad at here, other than that Longshot seems so utterly inescapable. It feels like their destined, like they’re fucking soulmates, but every time she gives in to that stupid traitorous hope the universe finds someway not just to separate them but to reset them--to rip her out of his head and force them to begin the whole damned thing over and over again. She’s just so fucking tired of it and she wants off the Longshot rollercoaster. 

“Probably, I hope it wasn’t too much trouble. I’m Longshot.” He holds out his hand with a charming smile as he says the two words she’s come to dread most in the multiverse.

“Yeah, I know.” She does not take his hand.

“Oh, sorry memory loss-”

“Just keep happening to you. Yeah, I know. Just get in, okay? I’ll take you to the nearest town and you can call whoever your people are right now.” 

“I don’t think I have any.” Longshot slides into the car. “There was a woman, I was helping her get enough money to pay for her nephew, a prince in Africa to get a ticket to America, but subsequent events have led me to believe she may have been lying to me.”

“God, you’re hopeless.” Alison shakes her head. She peels into the empty road and dust billows up behind them. 

Longshot shrugs at that. “I’ll get by, I always do.”

“Yeah, you always do.” Alison twists her hands over the steering wheel. She’s going to drop him off at the first sign of civilization and he’ll find something. Like he said, he always does. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine and he isn’t her problem anymore and the faster she gets out of here the less likely she is to end up falling back in love with him again. “Look, there’s an active gate in LA, you’re basically an X-man the least they can do is give you a place to stay.”

“A gate?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a new island nation. It’s nice. You’ll like it and I’m sure someone can help you figure something out once we’re there,” she explains. “It’s about seven hours. We should get there by midnight.”

“Will we pass through the redwoods?” Longshot asks. 

“What?”

“My friend, with the nephew in Africa, told me about going to see the red woods when she was younger. She said they were trees so big you could drive a car through them. I want to see one. I...I feel like I need to, maybe.”

“No. I don’t think so.” Alison shakes her head, Her plan had been to turn south at Reno and go down the east side of the Sierras for most of the trip, sliding underneath the mountains instead crossing over.

“I don’t suppose you’d want to make a small detour?” Longshot gives her a charming hopeful smile. Alison has seen plenty of people cave to that smile. She’s caved to that smile plenty of times. She is not caving today. She is going to continue her planned, boring drive through the desert.

“I’m not driving all the way to fucking Redding so you can look at some trees.”

“Okay,” Longshot gives in easily, tapping his fingers along with the music, piping out of the small car stereo. 

Alison caves.

“We can go to Muir, it’ll just add a day.”

Longshot smiles at her, it’s sweet and happy and she can remember all the other times he’s smiled at her like that. The cd switches tracks and Patsy Cline starts lamenting how crazy she’s been acting. Alison has never been a “country girl” and her recent work has been solidly in the pop punk genre. Her last album had been about as typical generic pop punk as one could get. Thus it had sold very well despite poor critical response calling it _a perfunctory performance from someone who knew they needed to put out an album but had nothing to say. It is an uninspired and soulless entry into a discography that is otherwise full of surprising depth and breadth. Perhaps one day we will look back on this moment as the beginning of the decline of Alison Blaire’s hitherto dazzling career._

Which, first off, fuck that guy. Alison’s career has survived eight apocalypses, a failed rebellion in another fucking dimension, and that god awful movie. She’s not fucking declining now. But also, they were right. It was a lackluster and uninspired album she’d put out because she knew she needed to put an album out. So here she was hoping to find inspiration in new genres by listening to Patsy sing about yet another man who done her wrong while Alison’s ex-husband sits naked in the passenger seat. Maybe she will write a song about it. She’ll call it Patsy and let the critics wonder what the naked man is a metaphor for.

“So I know you know who I am, but I still don’t know who you are,” Longshot interrupts her thoughts.

“You can call me Alison.” 

“Alison. Alison,” He rolls it around on his tongue frowning slightly. “Did I used to call you Ali?”

“Not really, why?”

“Something else then, did you have another name? Alison doesn’t feel quite right.”

“My code name is Dazzler.”

“Dazzler. Alison. Yes that’s it. That feels familiar.”

“Don’t act like you remember.”

“I’m not, I don’t. I just feel things sometimes.” Longshot frowns as he stares out the window as the desert starts to be dotted with trees and houses. More cars begin passing them on the little two lane highway. It’s a strange expression on his face, this look of frustrated thought. Alison is used to seeing him always shrugging and smiling, everything rolling off him like water. Maybe when she’d first met him when there had only been one or two lost lifes behind him he’d frowned like that. Like he wanted to find a way to explain his life. The last few times they’d met though he’d adapted a far more carefree lifestyle, skipping from one moment to the next without engaging with any of it--just killing time between resets. She isn’t sure which hurts more, when he wants to remember her and can’t or when he doesn’t care enough to try. 

“My friend with the nephew in Africa told me that memories are strongest when feelings are attached to a specific moment. I don’t think I knew that before. Maybe I did, maybe I’ve already tried this and it didn’t work but I guess I’ll never know,” Longshot shrugs. “I’ve been thinking that whatever process takes my memories can only remove the specific moments, but the feelings are still there. I have not yet been able to reattach a moment to a feeling but if something would have reminded me of it I think I can still feel whatever emotion was tied to the memory even if I don’t know why. Does that make sense?” 

“No.” The radio draws out the silence between them until she can’t take it anymore. “What do your not memories tell you about us?”

“That I was happy when I saw it was you,” Longshot answers, turning to look at Alison. “More than just the car stopping for me. I knew that would happen eventually. But when I saw your face I felt happy. And a little sad. I think. I think we probably knew each other very well.”

“Yeah, we used to.” 

The freeway has opened up into a six lane thoroughfare heading through the central part of Reno. They cause nearly five accidents because people keep staring at Longshot’s dick.

“I don’t suppose you have any clothes I could wear,” Longshot asks as the seventh car nearly swerves into the next lane. 

“There’s a duffle bag in the backseat, you’re welcome to whatever fits.”

Longshot twists around to reach back sticking his naked ass against the window. There are two more almost-accidents. Alison can’t blame them, she remembers what a nice ass it is. The dick is pretty nice too and Longshot certainly knew how to use it. She should dump him by the side of the road before she ends up fucking him again. 

Her clothes end up strewn across the backseat as he digs in her bag finally coming up with a wraparound skirt and a soft pink sweater. It’s a little loose on her, nice and baggy for long plane rides. She can tell, even from the corner of her eye, that he’s stretching out the shoulders, but it does look nice on him. 

Miraculously they make it out of the city without causing any major traffic disasters. The grey of the concrete slides away into the grey of the desert. Small trees start to dot the landscape, like children who’d run down the mountains ahead of their more cautious parents. On the horizon the Sierra Nevadas rise in front of them black with trees. 

In an hour they are deep in the forest and the desert already begins to feel impossibly far away, blocked out by the sequoias’ massive height. Longshot leans his head out the window to see all the way to the tops as they drive by.

“Are these redwoods?”

“No. These are nothing. You’ll see tomorrow.” Alison finds herself grinning with the old familiar thrill of introducing Longshot to some amazing earth thing he’s never experienced before. She’d thought the shine of that had would wear off after the first few rounds but no, it’s still as exciting as ever to see that look of wonder on his face.

Eventually the long winding climb up ends and they begin the long winding climb down the otherside. The trees start to thin and small towns and farmlands break up the landscape. By the time they hit the township of Bowman Alison is starting to get hungry. She has no idea when the last time Longshot ate was but he hasn’t complained. He doesn’t actually need to eat as often as a human she remembers, though she knows he will eat if she does regardless. 

In Aubrun she sees signs for an alehouse and that sounds really good right now. Beer and crappy beer food are just the thing she needs to take the edge of this ridiculous day. Longshot gets plenty of looks when they enter the restaurant and Alison isn’t sure if it’s because he’s wearing her skirt or just because he’s still that handsome. No one says anything though and he doesn’t seem to notice. Everyone goes back to their own conversations after a moment. 

Longshot doesn’t even look at the menu when they sit down. 

“Are you not hungry?” Alison asks.

“Actually, I’m starving. But I’ll order whatever you have.”

“That’s not how you eat at a restaurant. Everyone orders something different and then you all share a little so everyone gets to try everything.”

“Oh, I don’t know what you’ll like though.”

“It’s not about what I’ll like, just get whatever you want.”

“I don’t know what I want. Are you sure I can’t just get what you have?”

“Yes. I’ll take care of it. If you don’t like what I order for you, we can switch.”

The waiter comes to their table with glasses of water. He’s young and can’t quite keep his eyes off Longshot. She might let him keep the sweater, he’s probably ruined the fit for her anyways and it does look really good on him. The soft pink makes his skin shine and brings out the darker blues in his eyes. She orders a burger for her and fish tacos for Longshot and a beer bucket to share between them. She doesn’t feel like making more choices. 

When the food arrives she cuts her burger in half and transfers it and handful of her fries to his plate and takes one of his tacos and about half the rice. 

“This is how you eat at a restaurant.”

“I see.” Longshot picks up the taco and takes a big bite. 

“If you don’t like the tacos you can have the rest of the burger, but if you don’t like the burger you’re kind of out of luck because I’m definitely eating this taco.”

“No, they’re good. You have excellent taste.”

“Sometimes,” Alison grabs her second beer. Their waiter made a good selection with a solid mix of mid-grade standards and some local crafts. Probably attempting to impress Longshot. She should tell him he doesn’t need to try that hard. Longshot can be won with a smile if you’re just looking for one night. Keeping him is harder, is impossible really. She would know. It’s not really his fault. The beer has made her feel charitable enough to admit that much. But, that doesn’t change the truth of it. Longshot’s lives are temporary and it doesn’t work to hope for anything more with him. It just ruins you.

Longshot drinks two of the six beers and Alison has the other four and the room wobbles slightly when she stands. 

“I don’t suppose you know how to drive?”

Longshot shakes his head. 

“Crap.” She drops a generous tip on the table and takes the glass of water outside with her. She unlocks the car and crawls into the backseat, lying across the scratchy carpet interior. “Give me like two hours and we can head out again.” 

Longshot nods and slides in on the other side, settling her head on his lab. He pets her hair absently. Alison cannot count the number of times they’d sat like this when they’d been together. It’s comforting and familiar and makes her want to cry with missing it. Longshot hums the tune to one of the songs they’d been listening to and Alison wants to take back her uncharitable thoughts about Patsy Cline’s pathetic hang up on some guy who never loved her because Alison feels just that way. Crazy for trying and crazy for crying and crazy for loving someone who can’t ever be hers again.

“The people who rented this car before you were on their honeymoon.” Longshot says. Alison looks up and sees him staring at the door with his hand pressed against the armrest. “They made love in the backseat four times.”

“Ew, I don’t suppose you can see if the Avis people cleaned it?”

“Haven’t gotten there yet. They were really in love, couldn’t keep their hands off each other.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Were we like that?”

“What makes you think we were in love?”

“Just one of my feelings.”

Alison doesn’t say anything for a while, just lets Longshot fingers move through her hair. 

“Avis cleaned very well after they found a used condom under the seat.” Longshot informs her.

“Yes.”

“Hmm?”

“Yes, we were like them once.”

“Then I forgot you?”

“Yeah.”

Longshot doesn’t say anything to that, just places his hand back on the door and stares out into space. 

Alison opens her eyes and the sky outside has reached full night. She must have dozed off. Good news is she doesn’t feel drunk anymore. She gets up and Longshot’s hand slides off her shoulder. He doesn’t move from where his head is resting against the glass of the window. 

She slides around to the driver's side and starts the car. She turns the music all the way down so it’s just a quiet hum in the background and starts driving again.

Longshot wakes up as they begin skirting around the lower foothills of the Northern Coastal Range. It’s nearing eleven and Alison has started thinking about pulling over for the night. There are motels and hotels and cozy B&Bs advertised at every turn off. They’ll be in Napa valley soon and couples getaway is the sort of tourism they aim for up here. It’s apparently the busy season because it takes them three tries to find a hotel with a vacancy sign. They have one room left and because her life is apparently doing its best to imitate a country song at the moment there is only bed. It’s not even a big bed. It’s maybe a queen but probably just a full size mattress and Longshot doesn’t have anything to wear. 

Alison’s pajamas aren’t exactly modest either, just a light tank top and shorts. They brush against each other every time they move. Longshot’s skin isn’t quite like humans, she’s not sure what exactly makes the difference but it’s always felt like running her hands over a really expensive leather jacket, soft and smooth. She’s got a pretty big collection of leather jackets these days. Sometimes, when she’s feeling particularly down she’ll put one on and run her hands over the sleeves. 

His hand brushes the side of her thigh as he shifts. It sends a hum of desire through her. It’s not like Longshot has gotten less handsome over the years and she’d spent all day with him either naked or wearing her clothes. And in truth she’s never stopped wanting him, never loved anyone as much as she’d loved him no matter how much she tried. She never found someone who just seemed to know how to touch her like him. 

For old times sake right? It’s not like he can break her heart more. She knows the score now. This is all just temporary, she’ll take him back to Krakoa and that will be that. She can have one last good time.

She lets her hand press against the outside of his thigh, an invitation. She feels Longshot still beside her. His hand covers hers and his fingers trail up the inside of her arm. Her skin pebbles under the light touch. She turns over, swinging her legs across his waist. His hands find her hips automatically. They slide up her waist under the loose tank top to cup her breasts, a thumb brushing against her nipples before they slide around her back and he uses her to leverage himself upright to press his lips to that spot behind her ear that she loves. No one has ever been as good at this as him. 

She can feel him getting hard against her and she doesn’t have a condom. She wasn’t exactly expecting to hook up on this impromptu road trip. She knows they are biologically compatible. She doesn’t care. She wants him. She misses him, all the fucking time. This is as good as it gets for them. So fuck it. Make More Mutants right?

She pushes down on the waistband of her shorts and Longshot slides one hand down to help her pushing blindly at her clothes and sliding his long soft fingers into her. 

“Alison, Ali-I-”

She pulls him into a kiss. Unless he’s saying no, she doesn’t want to hear it. He holds her close, gripping her tight to him and she’s pretty sure he’s getting cum in her hair but she doesn’t really care. She can shower afterwards. She shifts up until she can feel his cock pressed against her entrance. She slides down slowly, feeling each catch of Longshots breathe against her lips. She moves against him and he matches her rythme. They move in perfect synchronicity chasing a feeling together. Longshot presses his lips to her neck and shoulders and mouth whispering her name over and over like if he says it enough he can force himself to remember. Maybe that’s what he’s trying to do, to tie this moment to her name so the next time he hears it he can remember this feeling.

They have sex again when they wake up in the morning and once more in the shower. 

“I’ll get breakfast and some clothes for you.” Alison says fastening her necklaces and bracelets while Longshot tries to untwist the wrap skirt he was wearing yesterday. “It’ll be a bit warm for that sweater.” 

“Thanks.” He smiles, dropping the skirt and laying back down on the bed, taking her hand and pulling her down for a soft kiss. She should put a stop to that. She should explain that this was just sex because they both know he isn’t going to be around long enough for anything else. She lets it happen though. Let’s herself and him forget that they aren’t getting back together, not for long anyways.

She does the clothes first, driving back towards a Target they’d past on a few stops back. She gets him the basics, packs of T-shirts and underwear and pants with a belt in case she guessed the size wrong. She grabs a box of condoms as well. A little late if he’s already knocked her up, but at least next time she'll be prepared.

They stay to the north of the city and as they pass through the mountains the clouds descend to meet them blanketing the tops of the hills and cascading down the sides like water. 

The slow start to the morning means they get to Muir National Forest around noon. The first stop is the biggest oldest tree. 

“This is a redwood,” Alison says with a grand gesture. Longshot stares up as it disappears into the sky. “Don’t look too long, it gives you vertigo.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so big. Do you think it’s bigger than a sentinel?”

“Not these, but I think maybe some of the ones further north might be.” She takes his hand and leads him down the path towards the trails that wind through the various groves. He stops when they get to cathedral grove. 

“This place, it’s familiar?”

“Yeah, we came here once, a long time ago. When we were both with the X-men and we were staying in San Francisco for a bit. We weren’t together yet, but some couple was getting married here and I joked that when I got married I wanted it to be here too.”

“Did we?”

“Hmm?”

“Get married here?”

“No, we were married in Mojoworld. It wasn’t even really a wedding just the two of us promising to be together forever and exchanging rings.”

“I guess I’ve lost mine.” Longshot looks down at his bare hands. “Do you still have yours?”

“No,” Alison lies.

Longshot looks at her quizzically for a moment before reaching out and slowly lifting the tangle of necklaces she’s started wearing as part of her new look. He slides through them one by one until he gets to the one full of silly little charms, a music note and cat face and a small gold ring among a dozen more. It’s unerring how he picks it out so easily. He holds it carefully and stares out towards the middle distance. 

“Your hair was more red then.” 

She grabs the ring and steps away. “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry.” Longshot drops his hands. “I just wanted to see one of my own memories for once. I get to see everybody else's past but my own. I just-I just wanted something back.”

“You’re just going to forget again.”

“I never forget you.”

“Bullshit,” Alison snaps, suddenly furious at the lies.

“I don’t. I know I don’t always know you but I never _forget_ you. I dream about you all the time. Every night, whether I know you or not, I dream about you and that” he gestures at her necklace. “I see you standing in a grove of trees and I know you’re waiting for me and I’m trying to get to you and I miss you and I don’t even know who you are but I know there’s someone I’m supposed to be with.”

“That’s not enough.” Alison shakes her head, stepping farther away from him. “That’s not - you don’t just forget me. You disappear. You just fall off the face of the earth and I’m left wondering if you’re dead until you pop up in--in the middle of the fucking desert and convince me to be with you again and then just as suddenly you’re gone and the next time I see you don’t even remember who I am. You don’t even say sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t.” Alison stops herself and takes a deep breath. “I’m not asking for an apology, just don’t make this harder than it has to be for me.” 

“Okay.” Longshot nods, his voice quiet and his hands curled against his side. 

They keep going around the woods until the trail circles back to the parking lot. The drive south is quiet. Alison can’t handle anymore sad country and changes the cd to something fast paced and foriegn. The highway slides between ridges of the Southern Coastal Range into the wide valley full of farmland in full summer's green. Every hundred miles or so it breaks west and runs along the beaches for a minute before sliding back to east and into the valley. 

“Did we spend a lot of time on the beach together?” Longshot asks during one of those westward breaks. Below them the ocean stretches out as far as the eye can see. 

“Not really, we had a base in mojoworld that was near the shore in a little cove. It was a good strategic location with plenty of fresh water and food and it was hard for Mojo and his people to find. We were there for a year maybe. I think that’s where Shatterstar came from.” She can’t help the smile the memory brings.

“Who?” 

That was hit Alison hadn’t seen coming. She should have. Longshot has no memory of anything. Why would Shatterstar be an exception? It’s not even like he’s that important to them, she only found out about him a little while ago. Still, the question takes her by surprise, it hits in a spot she hadn’t realized she’d left vulnerable.

“Our son.”

“We have-oh. Did I know him? I mean when did I…?”

“No. I mean I think you might have been friends with him as an adult. But we didn’t get to keep him. I didn’t even know he existed until recently either. I had thought...I remember being pregnant. I remember when we found out. We were so happy. It was a terrible time and place to be bringing a child into but we were just so happy to become parents and then you disappeared and I lost the war, our rebellion was crushed. I thought the stress had made me miscarry and the trauma had made me forget.”

Longshot reaches out and takes her hand. “I’m sorry you were alone for that.”

“I think he’s still in New York if you want to find him.”

“I think I would like that. You will come too?”

“I don’t know. We don’t-I don’t know him very well.”

“Then you should come. We’ll get to know him together.”

“Okay, yeah. Let’s do that,” Alison agrees as they turn away from the shore again and head into the outskirts of the greater Los Angeles area. 

The gate is planted in Griffith Park, next to the planetarium. The mayor is not pleased but it makes it easy to find for all the southwest mutants who come looking for their way home. Alison returns the car to the lot closest to the park and then they wait for a Lyft to take them the rest of the way. Longshot picks up a penny and watches some long forgotten memory attached to it. Alison lifts her necklace off and holds out the ring to him.

“Here, you can watch. It was your day too.”

“Thank you.” Longshot takes the necklace from her and holds it against his chest watching their wedding play out in front of him. The Lyft pulls up but she makes the driver wait until he’s done before they get in. 

He gives the ring back and she tucks it back among the ankhs and moons and other charms where she can always keep it close and hidden. “Perhaps one day you’ll let me do that again. With the trees this time. Like you wanted.”

“Maybe,” Alison shrugs. “Maybe we should get married in a lot of different places. Fill the world with memories of us for you to stumble across when you forget me again.” She jokes.

“Yes. We should do that,” Longshot nods seriously and maybe it’s not such a bad idea to give him a roadmap back to her. Maybe they can find a new way to fix the old problem. 


End file.
